The information age forces us to push aside the one-to-one business relationship. We’re in a period of long tail distribution where the business of the internet, or any business for that matter, allows content to be served endlessly across the online landscape. This content will act as indirect and direct revenue sources, assuming a user is actively creating something that people already want.
I remember reading the story about Mark Zuckerberg and the “creation” of the respective Facebook communities.
A manager asked him “how do I create communities for my business like the ones that exist on Facebook?”
Mark responded in his typical manner that “you can’t.”
His point was that communities already exist in society–Facebook simply gave them a place to easily organize.
On the same note, Twitter is popular because as a society we’ve embraced the usability of such a tool. If society didn’t want it, then it would be gone already. That’s not to say it will last–it may not. But at the moment, we’ve adapted to a product because it filled an existent desire.
Society inevitably gets what it wants. As an entrepreneur, your goal shouldn’t be to reinvent the wheel. It should be to provide elegant organization for a longing that already exists in people’s desires.